Anaïs Nin - Collages

Yet there at her feet lay an open magazine with a photograph of the Consul and the young film star in a gondola in Venice. And the young film star had commented to the press that she did not believe in the European system of a wife and mistress in close collaboration.

Nothing is ever finished. As they had always shared and paralleled their interests, the study of dialects from all the provinces of India, the Tibetan Book of the Dead , the history of Turkey, the classification of Arabian war cries, the history of rugs and pottery of Egypt, the history of ship building, birds of Africa, diseases of Tahiti, would she now parallel his experience and fall in love with someone like Bruce, the masculine counterpart of the Consul’s new love?

Could she love such an unstormy sky as his eyes, such a downy and untarnished skin, such a candid smile?

The man she carried in her mind at the moment was a Turkish war hero, a dark and wild man. She was writing his biography. The magnetic pull of his violence was greater than that of innocence and serenity.

A romance with a man who had died long ago promised at least no pain, no separations, no betrayals.

She boarded a plane to his native city.

Few people knew about him, but she knew him as well as if she had been his wife. She was adept at resuscitating a human being out of dusty books and files and letters in library vaults.

When she arrived at the Capitol, at the big hotel, she asked about ways to reach the village birthplace of Shumla. She was told she would have to wait for a guide, that no woman could travel there alone, and that it was the middle of the day, time for a siesta and that she should rest and wait.

But she could not sleep, and she could not wait. The photograph of Shumla which she carried in her wallet was so vivid, so alive, that she felt as if she had an appointment with him which could not be postponed.

She slipped out of the hotel and walked to the bus stop, asking her way. The buses were taking their load of men, women, babies and animals. She was the last to climb on. She was the only pale, fair-haired woman aboard.

Nothing is ever finished. The Consul was walking into the future with his young film star, learning to dance jazz in caverns without windows, studying The Dictionary of Slang , helping to compose instant films; and the Consul’s wife was retrogressing to the seventeenth century. Was this a form of faithfulness in her?

The bus jogged along. She was not treated like a tourist as her clothes were loose, crumpled and anonymous. She asked the conductor for Shumla’s village. He was surprised she would want to stop there. A small village, half in ruins. No foreigners, no hotels, no guides. She persisted and he stopped the bus. The road was white with sun and dust, as white as a ski slope. The stones like chalk. No shade from the silvery, denuded, thirsty pepper and olive trees. A few women in black carrying baskets and pottery, or standing by the well. Streets of earth or rough stones. Her heel broke. She tore both heels off. She wrapped her neck scarf around her hair. She walked alone while half of the village slept through the heat of noon. Now and then she stopped to ask someone: “The house of Shumla?” Some would look blank and suspicious. Others pointed the way. It was outside the village. From inside the shops whose entrances were covered with strings of beads which sang in the breeze, people watched the pale-faced woman stumbling over stones. She finally arrived at a group of half-ruined houses. There was no sign. But someone said: “That’s Shumla’s house.”

The big wooden door was open, because the hinges were half rusted and half gone. The house had been built around a patio. The garden was taken care of; it had flowers and bushes and fruit trees in bloom. But the rooms were in ruin. There were vestiges of murals. A few broken colonnades. The ceilings were gone, and trailing plants fell from the beams. The heat like a hypnotist made everything stand still as if deep in sleep. No leaf stirred. No voices were heard. His presence, six feet of dark brown flesh, heavy black hair and strong voice must have filled the fragile place. It was no wse e that though born there, he had run away to fight wars. And only came home to die.

His religion forbade biographies, photographs, records of personal lives. So she had found little to reconstruct his life. Whoever thought about him, or tried to make a living portrait of him would be struck with misfortune. But the Consul’s wife felt that having already suffered a loss, she could not be cursed any further. What else could happen to her? So she was fearless. She sat on one of the stone benches and tried to relive his life. Ill, dying, he must have listened to the sound of the trickling fountain. He did not die in the middle of battle. Did he regret this? Charging, screaming, with a curved sword held high above his head, he might have died then. Who had been there to hold the large, heavy head? As she said this she heard footsteps. A figure dressed in black appeared behind a column. It was a girl about fourteen. Her face was dark, her eyes of a highly polished black. But her mouth was tender, and a soft smile never quite left her lips.

“I came to see the house of Shumla because I am writing a book about him.”

“But it is forbidden,” said the girl.

“In your country, yes, but outside your country people think he was a great man, a hero, one of the bravest, and they would like to know about his life.”

“People dared to write about him?”

“Not his own people, but scholars and historians. They are embalmers. They are taxidermists. I wanted to write about the living man. I loved him. What do they know about him here in the village?”

“He was born here, in this house. I am a descendant of his. His great grandchild looks like him, they say. Come in and have tea with us.”

At the back of the house in ruins, in a wing preserved from decay, she found a complete family, great grandparents, silent and like mummies, grandparents, grandchildren.

They served her tea. They read her manuscripts. They said: “You have been truthful. You have not done him harm. You really know him.” It was the young girl who knew English and who translated it for them.

They invited her to stay a few days.

She slept in his bed. She saw his costumes, his swords, his knives, his shoulder bags, his bugle, his horse’s saddles and silver ornaments. She saw his boots, his shawls, his tents, his carpets for sleeping, his blankets for the cold, his fur-rimmed hats, his necklaces, his medals, his spurs.

The great grandchild who was said to look like him, like Shumla at fifteen, loved horses and war, and could reproduce the special cries they had for battle. He sang the songs they sang around the campfires.

She saw the rough maps he had used, the rough notes, the messages, and many drawings of the period which portrayed battles, executions, punishments, ceremonials, victories, banquets, weddings, burials, decorations of heroes.

There were no clocks in the house, no calendars. It facilitated her return to the past, a long journey. It washed away the years from her body.

She lived with Shumla; he visited her in her dreams. Even though the times dictated ferocity towards the enemy and no mercy towards prisoners, his obedience to them had been tempered with as much mercy as he could display without being branded a woman.

She took many notes from their stories. She convinced the family that Shumla, as a symbol of courage, belonged to the world, that it was not desecration to expose his life.

The old people had a wonderful memory. They remembered every detail they had heard, the color of his horse, the color of his belt, the number of beads on his necklace for luck, the names of his comrades, his friends, his relatives in other countries, the name of every battle, of every place where he had been.